Tax time tips for property owners: understanding deductions and depreciation
Landlords, it's almost tax time. Do you know which expenses you can claim and how you should claim them?
Many landlords fail to make the most of their tax-deduction entitlements. So, we asked Stuart Waugh, a director at the Sydney-based financial advice and accountancy firm Altus Financial, to talk us through it all.
What deductions can landlords claim?
Rental expenses that you can claim as deductions come in two categories, Waugh says:
Expenses for which you can claim a deduction now (in the income year you incur the expense) — for example, interest on loans, landlord insurance, council rates, repairs and maintenance, and depreciating assets costing $300 or less.
Expenses for which you can claim a deduction over several years (or decades), including capital works (such as a new fence or driveway), borrowing expenses (such as lender's mortgage insurance), and the decline in value of depreciating assets (such as curtains and appliances).
'It is important to claim each expense under the correct expense type to make sure you treat it correctly for tax purposes,' Waugh says.
What's the difference between repairs and improvements?
Fixing something and improving your property are very different things in the taxman's eyes.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
11 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Staggering pay rise you'd need since Covid to still afford a Sydney house
They're the kind of pay increases that would make doctors, politicians and even some CEOs jealous – but they've become a necessity for those hoping to crack the housing market. Home seekers wanting an average Sydney house will need to have boosted their income by $150,000 a year just to have kept pace with the incredible property price rises since Covid, a new study shows. The Canstar analysis tracked the household income needed to afford a median priced Sydney home in both 2020 and 2025 – taking into account the typical loan rates being offered at the time. The findings have laid bare the once in a generation price rises and interest rate hikes over the tumultuous period, suggesting a market that has run away from even the wealthiest professionals. With Sydney's median price at about $950,000 in 2020, Canstar indicated that buying a typical house was affordable for a couple or individual back then with a pre-tax income of about $145,000 a year. The minimum income required to buy an average Sydney house has since risen to nearly $290,000 a year. It's followed a circa 60 per cent increase in the cost of housing between 2020 and 2025, along with a nearly 4 per cent hike in interest rates – even when accounting for the two rate cuts this year. Canstar director of research Sally Tindall said few workers saw their earnings grow fast enough to keep up with the price changes. She pointed to ABS weekly earnings data that showed wages over the same five-year period increased by just under 16 per cent. This incredible mismatch was leaving more people shut-out of the market and consigned to a life of renting, Ms Tindall said. 'It is astonishing to see just what kind of income is required to get a foot on the property ladder these days,' she said. Part of what was fuelling the incredible rise in property prices was the burgeoning amount of equity upgraders had behind them to channel into their next purchases, Ms Tindall said. 'It's not an even playing field,' she said. 'Very few people have had the kind of pay rises needed to keep pace with the market. 'For most people, the only way they've kept up is because they already own property. Success breeds success.' Increases in the income needed to buy the average houses in some of Sydney's most sought after suburbs were the most extreme, Canstar revealed. Cracking the house market in north shore suburbs Crows Nest and Lane Cove required a yearly income roughly $300,000 higher than in 2020, while in many Harbour-suburbs the difference was $500,000. This was for buyers with a standard loan rate and 20 per cent deposit who wanted to avoid 'mortgage stress' – spending more than a third of their gross income on loan repayments. Luxe areas Bellevue Hill and Dover Heights led the nation for the biggest changes since Covid, with the income needed to afford a median house up $883,000 in the former and $720,000 in the latter. Even apartments in suburbs known as more affordable Sydney enclaves demanded wage rises that few Sydneysiders could match. Buyers needed to earn about $30,000-$50,000 more per year than they did in 2020 to afford units in Penrith, Parramatta, Punchbowl, Seven Hills, Toongabbie and many others. 'Fundamentally, the issue facing first-home buyers across the country is that prices are too high and their wages can't keep up,' Ms Tindall said. 'There are a range of complex reasons we have this problem, but one of the primary factors is that we don't have enough housing supply and we are not building enough to satisfy demand.' Michael White, an agent with inner west group Adrian William, said first-home buyers were often adapting to the difficulties of keeping up with the market by investing in units. These would often be kept for a few years before being resold and used as a springboard for the purchase of a family home, he said. Natalie Wells bought a Newtown unit in late 2019, just before the pandemic hit, and said the difference between the market then and now was huge. She is selling the Enmore Rd property, one of the few rooftop one-bedders with a wraparound balcony in the area, at auction this weekend. 'It was pretty competitive back in 2019,' she said. 'I had to pay a lot more than it was worth then to secure it, but it's nothing like the market now. Demand has changed so much for any property. 'This whole area, it used to be student bars, now it's a mix of much more up-market places. Prices have just accelerated. 'I feel lucky my generation were able to get into the market when there wasn't this supply and demand imbalance. Because we already own properties, it's easier to trade in and out but worry for my kids. How are they going to do it in future?'
West Australian
an hour ago
- West Australian
World Gold Council working to lure artisanal miners across globe away from ‘illicit actors'
The World Gold Council estimates up to 20 per cent of the world's supply of the precious metal is produced by 'artisanal' miners whose activities are vulnerable to exploitation from 'illicit actors' such as terrorists and mercenary organisations like the notorious Wagner Group. During his visit to Kalgoorlie-Boulder this week, the council's chief strategy officer Terry Heymann said the London-headquartered organisation wanted to bring these small-scale miners into the formal gold supply chain and make them less likely to work with 'informal and illicit markets'. Artisanal and small-scale mining involves individuals usually working by themselves and mainly by hand or with some mechanical or industrial tools. 'This is very different from the large-scale professional mines . . . (it's) not really happening in Australia, it's much more of an issue in other parts of the world, but it's an issue that we care about deeply and we're doing a lot of work in how to support responsible artisanal and small-scale gold mining,' Mr Heymann said. 'A number of my colleagues this week are in Ghana, where the Ashanti King is actually convening a conference to address this issue, which is how do we support access to the formal markets for small-scale and artisanal gold mining? 'Why is that important? 'Because if they don't have access to the formal markets, they go to the informal and illicit markets. 'And that's a real challenge for the gold industry, one that we're actively involved in and doing a lot of work on.' Mr Heymann said a report it held in partnership with former British deputy prime minister Dominic Raab highlighted the dangerous nature of these 'illicit actors'. '(Mr Raab's) findings, unfortunately, are really stark . . . without access to the formal market, these illicit, informal and sometimes illegal miners are forced to work with illicit actors, and that then gets into supplying gold funding for terrorist groups, mercenaries, with the Wagner Group as an example.' The Wagner Group is a Russian-based private military company which has been involved in conflicts across the globe, including the current war in Ukraine. Notoriously, in June 2023 the group's then-leader Yevgeny Prigozhin launched an 'armed mutiny' against the Russian military — but it ended before the Wagner Group's planned march on Moscow. Mr Prigozhin died in a plane crash in Russia in August 2023. Mr Heymann said the issue was extremely important for the whole gold sector. 'It's a different part of the gold sector to where most of the people investing in gold are going to be getting their gold from,' he said. '(And) it's not something the industry can do by itself, and this is why we are calling on governments around the world, particularly those involved in the G20, who can really group together and make a difference on this to take action, to be part of this coalition of the willing to actually drive change. 'My boss, the CEO of the World Gold Council, was meeting with the secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development last week, who is Australian — Mattias Cormann — and he pledged OECD support to us. 'The OECD has been hugely involved in this, and I think it's that level of support we need — of the OECD, of national governments in Australia, in the US and Canada, big mining nations using their ability and their leverage to bring together different groups of people who can really address this issue.'
West Australian
2 hours ago
- West Australian
Inter line up former player Chivu to replace Inzaghi
Beaten Champions League finalists Inter Milan will appoint their former player and youth coach Cristian Chivu as manager to replace the recently departed Simone Inzaghi. Inter president Giuseppe Marotta said on Friday that the deal would be announced once details have been worked out with Parma, Chivu's current club. Inzaghi left Inter on Tuesday, four years to the day since his appointment and three days after his side suffered a 5-0 defeat by Paris St-Germain in the Champions League final to end the season trophyless. He was named coach of Al-Hilal a day later. Italian media reports had already named Chivu as the new manager with the 44-year-old Romanian set to sign a two-year contract, and Marotta, speaking at the Serie A Festival, all but confirmed the news. "To win, money alone is not enough, expertise, planning, experience, and many other qualities are needed," Marotta said. "All these qualities are what we believe to have, for example in the case of Chivu. I'm saying this because I cannot give official confirmation as there is a bureaucratic aspect we need to overcome with Parma." Meanwhile Gian Piero Gasperini has been named as Roma's new coach, taking over for the retiring Claudio Ranieri following his successful run at Atalanta. "I need a significant challenge," Gasperini said in an interview released by Roma. He has signed a three-year deal for the club owned by Texas-based businessman Dan Friedkin. In nine seasons at Atalanta, Gasperini guided the Bergamo club to a Europa League triumph in 2024, six top-four finishes in Serie A, and a Champions League quarter-final. Atalanta have turned to Croatian Ivan Juric, who left Southampton following their relegation from the EPL, as Gasperini's replacement.
